Unpredictable (A Dance Story)

Chapter 8

Perfectly on time, there were 3 knocks on my door and Logan stood there. I couldn't help but smile at his perfect dark hair and blue-green eyes.

"You look very pretty," he said politely, but he didn't take his eyes off of the limp, bandaged arm at my side. I frowned a bit.

"Mom!" I called. As if I needed to. She'd been standing behind me, waiting to butt in.

"Hello, Logan!" She gushed, "I'm Mrs. Ford! It's so nice to meet you."

He shook her hand and smiled. "You too." He glanced back at me. "Ready?"

"Yep!" I replied.

He walked me to his car, where his mother was going to drive us. She was rail-thin and looked a lot like her son. She, at least, looked pretty excited. Even so, it was pretty awkward. She talked to me the entire way to the mall, but Logan didn't say a word. For some reason, I longed for the car rides with Abbie and Holden, where Abbie and I would fight over who got to sit up front and the chatting and laughter never stopped. When Holden's mother drove us, she would turn the music up really loud and dance with us. I wanted something other than this awkward silence when nobody knew what to say.

"Text me when the movie's over," Logan's mother said, dropping us off in front of the mall. I shivered and pulled my jacket tighter. I'd only stuck one arm in the jacket.

Logan led the way and held the door for me, getting us our two tickets to see Warm Bodies, a zombie movie I'd heard good things about. "Popcorn?" I asked.

"Do you want popcorn?"

"Yeah!" Seriously, who didn't get popcorn at a movie?

"With lots of butter?" He asked hopefully.

"Psh, of course!" I exclaimed. Okay...For the first time so far, he seemed to be warming up to me: over the amount of butter I poured on my popcorn. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess!

"I heard this movie was pretty good," he said as we sat down in the theater.

"Me too! I heard it was quite a killer," I replied, scrunching my noise at the cheesy pun. Zombies. Killer. Ah!

Logan chuckled quietly. I frowned again. He'd looked at the scratched up side of my face, then stopped laughing.

"Hey, can I sit on the other side of you?" I asked. Maybe he'd warm up to me more if he didn't have to sit on my right side. And I would be able to grab popcorn easier.

"Um, sure," he answered.

We both stood up, and I guess my plan wasn't completely foolproof, as my arm decided not to come with me. In such a tight space, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I glanced back to see Logan holding the wrist of the offending arm as far away from the rest of him as humanly possible, pure disgust on his face.

"Sorry," I mumbled, grabbing my arm. He didn't respond.

I felt hurt by his sudden refusal to pay attention to me. I tried my very best to think positive. Wasn't everyone freaked out by these things? He would forget it when he realized how fun I could be. When a funny part in the movie came, I looked over and laughed. He glanced at me briefly, but returned his attention to the movie.

Think positive, Ella. It's just a phase.

When the movie was over, I plastered a smile on my face. It was like a dance competition, when you were so nervous that you could barely smile, but you did anyway. That's about how I felt at the moment. He didn't talk to me until we were out of the movie theater. He grabbed my left hand and pulled me to the side.